What Makes a Hero?

War breeds heroes  and a deep need to anoint them. the soldier who sacrifices himself for his comrades, the civilian who walks 10 kilometers to get help for a wounded prisoner of war, the medic who makes no distinction between bleeding ally and bleeding enemy, the aid worker who passes through a combat zone to bring water to a crippled city  all are called heroes and all deserve to be. But the word is also a hedge against senseless death, a way to sustain the fiction that courage and valor will surely be enough to carry men and women...